The Exile’s Lament: A Tale of Thorns and Twilight
Where shadows weave their tapestries of blue,
A knight, once crowned in valor’s bright embrace,
Now treads the paths of exile, time, and space.
His armor, scarred by battles long since fled,
Gleams faint as specters of the storied dead;
The crest upon his shield, a faded rose,
Still whispers of a homeland he once chose.
Through realms of silence, pierced by whispered winds,
He seeks the garden where his grief begins—
A sanctuary veiled from mortal eyes,
Where starlight drips like sap from thorned skies.
Its gates, once wrought with ivy’s emerald breath,
Now clutch their bars like iron fists of death;
Yet through the cracks, a fragrance dares ascend—
The ghost of blooms that knew him as a friend.
“O hallowed ground,” he sighs, his voice a stream
That carves the air with echoes of a dream,
“Though banishment hath stripped my name away,
To thee I pledge my penance and my sway.
If in thy soil my sorrows may take root,
Let thorns ensnare my flesh, my heart thy lute—
For she who walks these paths in moonlit grace
Still haunts the shadows of this thornèd place.”
And lo, the garden stirs—its petals part,
Revealing her, the tempest of his heart:
A lady robed in twilight’s silver gown,
Whose eyes reflect the stars that Heaven drowns.
Her name, a hymn the nightingales withhold,
Her touch, a flame that turns the autumn cold.
“Sir Alaric,” she breathes, “thy wounds still bleed—
Why court the garden’s curse to sate thy need?”
“Lady Elowen,” quoth he, with head bowed low,
“Though exile chains my soul to realms below,
No law, divine or mortal, shall decree
My heart estranged from what it vows to thee.
These hands, though stained by war’s unkindly rite,
Would carve thy name in every star tonight.
If death be cost to walk once more this sphere,
Then let the blade find purchase—I am here.”
Her laughter, bitter as the willow’s wine,
Unfurls the sorrows tangled in her spine.
“Thy valor, knight, is but a hollow shield—
The garden’s heart is wounded, never healed.
Each petal here doth drink from veins of dread;
The roses bloom where tears of pain are shed.
To love this place is but to court the grave—
What dost thou offer that the garden craves?”
He kneels, his palms upturned to catch the rain
That weeps from branches twisted into chains.
“I offer blood, the life my vows denied,
To mend the roots where light and darkness bide.
If in this soil my essence finds its worth,
Let winter claim the remnants of my earth.
But grant her peace—let not thy thorns enslave
The soul that summer’s kiss could never save.”
A silence falls, as though the world suspires—
The garden weighs his soul’s unspoken pyres.
Then slow, the ground erupts in vines that rise,
Their tendrils clasping like a lover’s lies.
They coil his limbs, they pierce his noble breast,
And sip the crimson tides of his unrest.
Elowen’s cry, a shattered crystal sphere,
Falls soft as petals on his armored bier.
“Thy sacrifice,” she mourns, “is but a seed—
What springs from grief may yet eclipse thy deed.
The garden’s heart, now fed by mortal toll,
Shall bloom anew, yet claim thy vestige whole.
Where thou didst walk, the roses shall entwine,
And in their scent, thy whispered vows confine.
Alas, the cost of love’s unyielding blaze
Is but the ash that dims its dying rays.”
His breath now fades, a melody unsung,
As thorns embrace the knight, forever young.
The garden drinks his valor, drop by drop,
Till twilight’s veil descends, and all words stop.
Where once he stood, a rose of crimson hue
Unfurls its face to sip the morning’s dew—
A sentinel, its petals drenched in rue,
Its roots the tomb where knight and garden grew.
Elowen kneels, her palm against the bloom,
And feels the pulse of life within its gloom.
“Thy name,” she weeps, “shall grace the stars above,
A testament to hearts that break for love.
Yet in this garden, bound by thorn and vow,
I walk alone—thy memory my bough.
For exile’s crown, though wrought in grief’s design,
Is lighter than the silence left as thine.”
The seasons turn, the roses never fade—
Their scarlet whispers haunt the glen’s parade.
And travelers who dare the garden’s keep
Still hear a knight’s lament where shadows creep.
They speak of thorns that clutch like lovers’ hands,
Of blooms that weep like blood on foreign lands,
And in the twilight, when the stars align,
Two voices merge—a requiem divine.
